ICC: Raila, Ruto in war of words as Rift MPs ask the PM to resign

By Martin Mutua and Vitalis Kimutai

Prime Minister Raila Odinga is ready to give as good as he gets when faced with bare-knuckle politics from his competitors.

After weeks of taking a beating at prayer rallies across the country, Raila is showing his mettle.

The ODM leader has surprised both friend and foe by giving his re-election campaign teams free rein to tackle any attack messages aimed at him.

Their brief is to blunt the impact of barbs aimed at him by offering a speedy rebuttal or landing a blow of their own. The approach lets him stay above the fray while addressing the torrent of "wild and outrageous" accusations being used to eat away at his support.

It may also ensure that he is not knocked off his campaign message of reform to fight other political fires.

In an exclusive interview with The Standard, Raila said he had deliberately chosen not to be drawn into a war of words over some of the issues.

"I have been very tolerant and measured in my reactions to the wild and outrageous allegations that have been made against me, particularly regarding the International Criminal Court," he said.

Allies of Deputy PM Uhuru Kenyatta and Eldoret North MP William Ruto have attacked Raila and ODM at several prayer rallies for allegedly ‘celebrating’ the confirmation of charges against the two at the ICC.

Pure Propaganda

"The rallies are basically platforms for political agitation and propaganda," Raila said in an interview at his Harambee House office.

"I have heard some people at those rallies saying that I want to eliminate people from the presidential race and that I had done so in conjunction with (Luis) Moreno-Ocampo and Kofi Annan," he said.

He added that his decision to ignore some of these accusations was by no means an admission they had any merit. Instead, he sees the onslaught as a measure of his political strength.

"Ganging up (to attack me) is an admission of their individual weaknesses," he says. "They would not unite to block a weakling."

He added that the rallies were no way to prove one’s innocence, saying Uhuru and Ruto should follow the example of Henry Kosgey and Hussein Ali who fought their battles in court.

The ODM leader plans to deal with the attacks through his re-election secretariat, the ODM ‘rapid response’ team and political action groups like Friends of Raila Odinga. Targeting undecided and non-ODM voters, ODM members, Kenyans abroad and other audiences, the groups put out responses to any anti-Raila message as soon as they are released.

The counter-arguments ensure any competing message does not go unchallenged. The latest battleground has been the ICC trials and their expected impact on the next General Election.

Raila’s G7 rivals are pushing the message that some foreign governments are using the trials to determine who would be in contention and what happens after the outcome.

Last week, Yatta MP Charles Kilonzo tabled a document in Parliament claiming that a Raila presidency would be open to an ICC indictment of President Kibaki, and that arresting Uhuru and Ruto would help this goal. The British Government and Kenyan intelligence (NSIS) have dismissed the document, alleged to be a strategy brief from the UK Foreign Office, as "not genuine".

Raila says the whole charade is meant to ensure Kenya does not help the ICC proceed with the trials of Uhuru, Ruto and two others. "The aim was to drag the name of the President and mine into the issue, and prepare the ground for not co-operating with the ICC, like Sudan’s president Omar Al Bashir," he says.

The PM, however, insists there is no truth to the claims and the schemes are pointless. He points out that the Government is not a party to the two Kenya cases, now involving four accused individuals.

Subvert Justice

"We, as a government, undertook to co-operate fully with the ICC, and that has not changed," he added. When asked about this, William Ruto denied any plan to refuse to co-operate with the ICC.

The Eldoret North MP said he fully intended to be at the trial hearings in the case facing him and one co-accused Joshua Sang.

"We went to The Hague voluntarily even before the cases started. We are not about to find shortcuts to subvert justice," he said. Instead, he accused the PM of trying to whip up sentiment against the ICC accused for political reasons.

"What law, other than that of the jungle, does Raila subscribe to?" he asked. "He believes in employing unorthodox means to eliminate the competition."

Ruto described himself as law-abiding, saying it was Raila who was "a dictator who did not believe in the rule of law". He added that had the PM been one of the accused facing charges over the post-election violence, he would have been quick to condemn the ICC.

"The ICC would not have been good had he (Raila) been judged," Ruto stated. "But now he is pushing for our arrests and jailing so that he has smooth sailing in his quest for the presidency."

The MP repeated his claim Raila was the principal beneficiary of the post-election violence by securing a power-sharing deal after the dispute over the 2007 election’s presidential results.

"Raila does not believe in anything that does not favour him as he rides on rigged polls and unconstitutional means to leadership," he said. "It is the violence that rocked the country that transformed Raila from a presidential election loser to a Prime Minister and a co-principal."

Raila’s secretariat has argued Raila was an election winner who gave up the presidency to secure the power-sharing deal.

They also pointed to 100 acres of controversially secured land Ruto is surrendering to an internally displaced person as proof the MP was a more direct beneficiary of the violence.

Political Combat

The method of political rebuttal Raila has chosen is similar to that deployed by the White House recently in the 2012 presidential election.

US President Barack Obama’s re-election team has put together a ‘Truth Team’ dedicated to providing supporters with information on the president’s record and dirt on his Republican rivals.

The goal is "to arm supporters with the facts, figures and talking points they need to engage in ground-level political combat".

The PM said he was concerned the country did not seem prepared to confront impunity. He recalled the Kanu Government-sponsored ethnic clashes around the first two multi-party elections in 1992 and 1997.

Despite the attacks being well documented in the Kiliku Report and the Akiwumi Report, most of the perpetrators and instigators have never been held accountable.

The PM pointed that more Kenyans were killed in 2002 and, again, nothing happened, making the search for justice this time round all the more important.